News

At a recent convening hosted by Stanford's Gardner Center, educators shared insights and innovations that could point the way toward broader high school reform.

Through nearly a decade of collaboration with local school districts, Gardner Center researchers uncovered how California’s complex reclassification system can limit academic opportunities for multilingual students — findings that are now informing statewide policy discussions.

The Gardner Center will support the effort by collecting and reviewing data, measuring outcomes, and providing regular reports on the Police Department’s work and Pal Center’s youth diversion programs. 

Gardner Center researcher Laurel Sipes observes that differences in reclassification criteria across elementary school districts can lead to uneven levels of language proficiency among students when they reach high school.

The partnership between Stanford's Gardner Center and the Redwood City School District dates back to the center's founding and demonstrates how young people can benefit when the university collaborates with the communities that surround it.

New research reveals that while bans aren’t an instant panacea for problems in U.S. classrooms, schools can achieve positive outcomes with persistence.

Spring '26 edition of the Gardner Center's quarterly newsletter

Thousands of California students remain classified as English learners even after they reach proficiency in English. Several studies, including recent work by Stanford's Gardner Center, suggest the state’s reclassification rules may be holding students in language support programs longer than necessary to their detriment.

California educates more multilingual learners than any other state, yet many students remain classified as English Learners even after they’ve demonstrated English proficiency. In a webinar hosted by Policy Analysis for California Education, the Gardner Center’s Laurel Sipes shared insights from our research across nine local school districts.

Gardner Center Faculty Director Thomas Dee has been appointed to the advisory board for the Minneapolis Fed's "Opportunity & Inclusive Growth Institute," which conducts and promotes research that will increase economic opportunity and inclusive growth.